The farmer nicknamed the “bull of the ArdennesWas sentenced to 22 years in prison by the Ardennes Assize Court in April 2019. The general prosecutor’s office, who had requested 30 years of criminal imprisonment, had appealed against the judgment.
The Marne Assize Court of Appeal re-judges from Tuesday the farmer Philippe Gillet for the murder of his wife and the murder of his girlfriend, a case relaunched after the discovery of the latter’s body, which weakens his defense.
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The 49-year-old farmer was acquitted in April 2019 of the murder of his wife Céline, 34, an accidental death according to him. However, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the disappearance on the night of April 16 to 17, 2013 of Anaïs Guillaume, 21, whose charred car was found in a wood near the Belgian border.
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But the discovery, in November 2019, of the remains of Anaïs under a pile of manure from Philippe Gillet’s farm in Fromy (Ardennes) will weigh heavily in the debates. It intervened several weeks after the judicial authorities had received anonymous letters evoking the presence of Anaïs’s body on the Fromy farm, even though the excavations had so far remained without results. The public prosecutor’s office, which had required 30 years of criminal imprisonment at first instance and appealed against the judgment of the Ardennes Assize Court, now has a body whose DNA analyzes have proven that it was indeed the one. from Anaïs.
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“A cluster of plethora of clues”
During the first trial, the absence of a body did not prevent Advocate General Jacques Louvier from raising “a bundle of plethora of clues»Against Philippe Gillet, such as the purchase of 50 kg of lime the day before Anaïs disappearance or his last telephone demarcation at 4:47 am near the home of the accused. This bundle of presumptions had left Gillet unmoved, impassive and silent, arms crossed and gaze closed, in his glass cage in the Assize Court of Charleville-Mézières.
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Today the “Bull of the ArdennesAs the local press calls it, the last person to have seen Anaïs Guillaume alive like his wife Céline, appears more surrounded than ever. Quoted by the general prosecutor’s office, a veterinary expert from the National School of Alfort will also come formally contest the accidental version of the death of Céline Gillet, who would have died crushed under a cow, a version already contested by other experts in first case.
Philippe Gillet faces life imprisonment. The verdict is expected to be delivered on April 23.
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